A number of approaches have been taken to develop a mechanical tree pruner and tree topper. These systems mechanically chop or cut branches from the trees. Most of the systems also require hand pruning to prune the tree to it final configuration. The pruning and harvesting systems are not combined, but trellis systems have been utilized to make the manual pruning and manual harvesting more efficient. There are a number of mechanical pruning apparatus that use rotating cutter blades. An example is Rotary Blade Pruning Machine U.S. Pat. No. 6,250,056 B1 and references sited that prune or top the tree along a straight profile. The is no current pruning machine that can cut selected limbs and branches individually and collect an store the data of the pruned profile of the tree to be utilized to locate the fruit during harvesting.
Different approaches have been taken in recent years to develop harvesting machines that will quickly and efficiently remove fruit from trees in a condition that the fruit is suitable for market. Some success has been accomplished for very durable fruits and nuts, but unfortunately no approach has been successful for premium fruits grown for our commercial markets and our fresh markets. Examples of these are apples, pears, peaches, plums, apricots, cherries and citrus.
Shakers have been used with various catching apparatus to shake the tree trunk and catch the fruit that is dislodged. This has not been successful for premium commercial fruits, due to fruit bruising and damage from striking branches and limbs on the way down to the catch mechanism. There are a number of approaches to this effort including (Peterson, D., U.S. Pat. No. 4,606,179; Chiel and Zehavi, U.S. Pat. No. 5,816,037; Peterson and Kornecki, U.S. Pat. No. 4,860,529; Daniels, U.S. Pat. No. 5,946,896).
Another approach utilizes a branch or limb impactor to shake the individual limbs and catch the fruit on a soft conveyor. An example of this approach is shown in Peterson, D. L. and Wolford S. D., U.S. Pat. No. 6,442,920 B1. Robotic Fruit Harvester, U.S. Pat. No. 4,532,757 use a commercial robot arm. Another Self Propelled Robotic Fresh Fruit Picker is shown in George Gray, U.S. Pat. No. 7,540,137 B2 which uses curved rigid tubes that are rotated to access the fruit and then convey the fruit down the tube. Louis L. Bernheim, George M Harris, U.S. Pat. No. 2,968,907 uses a pneumatic fruit gripper and straight tube to guide the fruit out of the tree, but it is a manual application and uses gravity to transfer the fruit. There has been limited success in some applications with some of the harvesters, but currently there is no commercial harvester being utilized for the fresh market fruits. There is no dual purpose pruner and harvester developed for the tree fruit production.